MISSING: Chapter 5

MISSING
Chapter 5: The Girl Without A Chance

The girl without a chance materialized in 5th grade: scrappy like Di, but not blond. She enters on somewhat even ground. She is nice. She is quiet at first and then stronger, but attracts the attention of one of the more popular new boys. She comes in 5th grade because 5th grade is when The Academy of the holy trinity admits approximately 20 new students, expanding the class size to upwards of 50. She is not pegged as the new girl in any identifiable way. She plays soccer, but not with Anner and Rory and Lexa. She knows Lexa – I hear their parents are members of the same suburban fitness club, along with the Campbells. She knows the class pagliaccio femminile, clown: Paige, from kindergarten. Paige, whose bowl-hair cut lines her as an ally to the boys in games like tag; our pagliaccio has no affinity for romance or affection, but who declines an opportunity to affect a social status, even one’s own? Paige calls the new girl and offers to sit next to her at lunch on the first day of school. She has no malice. She does not manipulate. She has no mal-intent. She introduces the new girl like something she won over the summer.

The girl without a chance starts with one chance: she has the fortune to be paired with Di as her “buddy.” On the first day of school she is dropped off early and timidly finds the principal’s office. She is shuffled into the Old Gym for an assembly. She is shuffled up to a top section of the bleachers where she is seated near others her age. She is handed off to Mrs. Fraanzen who will be her homeroom teacher. Mrs. Fraanzen gestures that the children in this section are her classmates. After a long assembly, the children are herded into a room with green carpet where Mrs. Fraanzen introduces herself. The class will end in a few short minutes, so they will begin tomorrow with introductions. They will copy the instructions written on the board down into their assignment notebooks and when the bell rings they may find their next class.

Thank GOD she decides not to wear the uniform jumper she set out! Such a tragedy would be her fate while – sitting in the commotion of just-minutes-before-the-bell she overhears girls celebrate their freedom from the lower school commandment that prevents girls from wearing pants. A glance around the room reveals a couple of timid smart-looking girls wearing skirts. No jumpers. The girls who look the most confident and comfortable wear pants. Ugly, unflattering, unfashionable pants, she sighs.

Muss es sein?